LONDON — “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” — Stephen Dedalus, James Joyce’s Ulysses.

I know how he felt. As the EU referendum draws near, the Conservative Party is once again tearing itself and the country apart over Europe.

I have covered Britain’s tortured relationship with Europe since shortly before Margaret Thatcher was overthrown. That’s more than a quarter of a century. The world has moved on, several new chapters of European history have been written, but the Tories’ Euroskeptic clock is stopped forever at November 18, 1990.

On that day, Margaret Thatcher was packing for a trip to Paris for a summit to decide the post-Cold War security structure. The coup that would overthrow her — whose plotters were pro-European Tories — was about to begin. While she was in Paris, Thatcher lost the support of her parliamentary party and was forced to resign. If only she had stayed in London, the Euroskeptics claim, then the U.K. would have been able to disentangle itself from Brussels and the federal European superstate.

Except, of course, there is no federal European superstate. There is a single currency, of which Britain is not a part, and there is a Schengen area of open borders, of which Britain is also not a part.

Yet time and again I am hearing the same spurious arguments for getting out of “Europe,” the same absurd claims trumpeted in the same rabid headlines about Brussels treading on British sovereignty. Don’t they understand that almost all of the EU’s problems are caused by respect for national sovereignty? Brussels can’t tell Hungary’s Viktor Orbán what to do about refugees any more than it can send in police to arrest French strikers when they cost the European economy millions with their temper tantrums. Only in a nightmare universe is the EU a “federal” entity.

In the nightmare reality of the U.K.’s EU referendum we are subjected to the same rants from the same people — and if not the same people then from their sons or nephews. William Rees-Mogg, an anti-European columnist for the Times, may have passed away but his son, Jacob, lobs the same opinions at the country from the Tory back benches. Boris Johnson was Brussels correspondent for the Daily Telegraph in the early 1990s, which was where he first rehearsed the arguments that he uses today as leader of the official Leave campaign.

In my nightmare I cry out: “Why are you doing this again? Don’t you remember?”

I ask because I cannot forget.

Here is the potted history they seem to have forgotten.

At the most propitious moment for the European Project, the half-decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the leaders of France and Germany, François Mitterand and Helmut Kohl, pushed ahead with major steps towards a more federal Europe. That’s what the Maastricht negotiations were all about. At that point Thatcher was gone but her successor, John Major, played a blinder. Despite intense pressure from Mitterand and Kohl, Major kept Britain out of the euro and blocked moves towards a common defense and foreign policy.

His reward? The Euroskeptics in his party dogged his every step. Major publicly called three cabinet ministers “bastards.” In 1995 he was forced to call a leadership contest, saying: “Back me or sack me.” They backed him as Major easily defeated his opponent, John Redwood. But did that stop the Euroskeptics?

No. In fact Major is out of politics but Redwood is still an MP, and in every television studio he can find saying the same things as in 1995.

All the time Major spent dealing with the anti-Europeans was time spent not governing Britain. The prime minister did have other important things to deal with, such as the political process in Northern Ireland. Some of that process took place at European summits when Major and Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds could grab some face time to talk through this most tortured of negotiations. Did Tory Euroskeptics consider the degree to which their agitation made governing the U.K. more difficult?

After losing the 1997 election by a landslide to Tony Blair’s Labour Party, the Tories selected three Euroskeptics in a row to lead the party. They lost every election. Did that make them moderate their views or cease agitating to get Britain out of the EU?

No.

As in a nightmare, their behavior is impervious to logic. Nothing makes them stop.

* * *

It is time to remember the origins of this fiasco of a referendum. In January 2013, the Conservatives were in a coalition with the very pro-Europe Liberal Democrats. The Tories were trailing Labour by around 5 percent in opinion polls and UKIP, led by former Tory Nigel Farage, was beginning to be a factor. Cameron gave a speech in which he promised that should he win an outright majority in 2015 he would renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership, and based on the result of those talks there would be a referendum on Britain remaining in the EU. He dressed the announcement up in fancy language but no one was fooled as to why he was doing it.

It was doubtless seen in Downing Street as an easy promise to make, because no one expected him to win a majority in 2015 — no Tory expected to win one until 9:58 p.m. on May 7, 2015 when the exit polls began to come in. But they did win a majority and what was a British nightmare became a European one.

Leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage campaigns for votes to leave the European Union on May 26, 2016 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England | Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

When the negotiations began, the EU was grappling with 90 days from hell: the resurgence of the Greek debt crisis and the rise of the migration crisis on its southern borders, with a million refugees from Syria and Iraq headed through Greece and the Balkans to Europe.

Against this background of genuine crisis, Cameron set out to renegotiate Britain’s terms of EU membership. He created a problem for his partners out of his own act of domestic political expediency — and received the short shrift he deserved.

The situation was akin to going over to see a neighbor who you think owes you £5 from a restaurant bill you split the other week. Arriving at your neighbor’s house you see it is on fire and the children are screaming that their cat is inside and the fire brigade are battering down the doors. Would you choose that moment to say: “Angela, you owe me £5 from that lunch bill last Sunday?”

The nightmare continues. Opinion polls over the past week show the Remain campaign solidifying its lead. So, inevitably, Euroskeptics are starting to demand Cameron resign anyway.

Cameron should be very afraid. Just like the Terminator, the Euroskeptics can’t be bargained with. They can’t be reasoned with. They don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever.

But, unlike the Terminator or whatever figure haunts your dreams, they are real. They are the nightmare from which you can never awaken.

Michael Goldfarb is a London-based author, journalist and broadcaster. A former London correspondent for NPR, he has reported from more than 20 countries on five continents.

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Tom Cullem

And if the EU had been a bit more competent and politically savvy, and not made its ultimate aim so very clear, and kept its imperial claws out of sight, and people who voted for one thing didn’t find themselves with something quite different, a nightmare might not have ensued.

The idea that this all happened unilaterally in Britain, and that Brussels’ failures and refusal to reform or bend in any direction to adapt to changing circumstances had nothing to do with the potential collapse of the EU, is specious in the extreme.

This is a three-legged stool, and those legs are planted in Britain, Brussels, and Germany.

Posted on 5/30/16 | 6:09 PM CET

Gerhard

This journalist clearly has no idea of the reality of the EU, or wishes to conveniently overlook reality to support his disingenuous article.
“Except, of course, there is no federal European superstate. There is a single currency, of which Britain is not a part, and there is a Schengen area of open borders, of which Britain is also not a part”
This statement is completely false (or BS, Americans): he ignores the existence of the European Parliament, (where the UK’s biggest party is anti-EU!) the European Commission and the European Council. These are the Congress, White House executive and Senate respectively. There is an EU Foreign Service. These are the institutions of state, as built up by the Maastricht, Amsterdam and Lisbon Treaties. The EU is a de facto superstate, as its laws have primacy over national parliaments. The European Court of Justice (like the US Supreme Court) has jurisdictional supremacy over national courts. There is a central bank, the ECB, which acts like the Federal Reserve, and controls the majority currency in the EU. These are all organs of state, so Mr. Goldfarb either doesn’t have a clue about the EU, or he is lying when he claims it isn’t a federal superstate in all but name.
It is, and the UK is right to be worried about it.

Posted on 5/30/16 | 8:31 PM CET

mr. waiters

Hey look! Another Remain editorial from Politico! Like all of the others (has there even been a single Leave editorial here?), this one not only argues on behalf of Remain but suggests that its opponents are unhinged, delusional demagogues.

Rather than try to persuade people of your point of view, all you’ve done is demonizing the opposition and further polarize the electorate.

As the liberal order seems to be immolating itself everywhere across the west, lets remember that it was trusty Establishment figures like Mr. Goldfarb that lit the fuse. (Though I’m sure he’ll come to blame that on the horned, pitchfork-wielding babymurderers on the other side too, won’t he?)

Posted on 5/30/16 | 10:34 PM CET

Roy Jacobs

Where the author plays fast and loose with the facts is when he states that Margaret Thatcher had lost the confidence of her party.
Untrue, certain members of her cabinet decided that their loyalty to the European Project and Thatchers increasing Euro Scepticism could not live together, so they conspired to stab her in the back.
It was this betrayal, their decision to place European loyalty over that to their party, leader and country that caused the bitterness we see to this day.
He is also materially incorrect in his view of the polls, the latest polls show a sharp uptick to Brexit as the immigration issue takes centre stage, the Brexit campaigners are on the front foot, more motivated and addressing the working class voters so ignored by Labour, 3 weeks is a long time, the Remain vote is flakey outside the metropolitan elite.

Posted on 5/31/16 | 8:51 AM CET

Azog

The US is against it so the UK will not leave the EU.

Posted on 5/31/16 | 9:53 AM CET

Jonty

Dear Michael a unreconstructed worshiper of all things that a progressive socialist Liberal is making such ludicrous arguments about Brexiteers.
Just watch him on BBC programme Dateline he out does Jeremy Corbyn for his support for lefty wet socialist ideology.
Read him in the Guardian but never in the Telegraph or Daily Mail.
That says it all to his political leanings.

Posted on 5/31/16 | 11:20 AM CET

The Coloured European Observer

The Leave campaigns base of voters are a bunch of old farts who want to GO BACK to their not-so-glorious days of the British Empire, thereby SPOILING things for all the young people who wanna stay IN by 75%!! That’s Trumpian levels of Latino support …. AGAINST him.

The British Empire, by the way, was a murderous force for EVIL that slaughtered, oppressed up to a billion people, whom the Brits shamelessly plundered, which is why they are so rich now.

Their basic mistake is that they think that 480 million Europeans need 60 million Brits MORE than the Brits need Europe. This is, on its face a ridiculous believe, and it’s not borne out by the facts.

If you wanna leave, then LEAVE! SOD OFF! It’s worse for both, but more so for the UK. Especially since the Scots might leave the UK then, with all their oil…..

@Gerhard
=====
“Except, of course, there is no federal European superstate. There is a single currency, of which Britain is not a part, and there is a Schengen area of open borders, of which Britain is also not a part”
This statement is completely false
======
NOPE. That statement is completely CORRECT, you are LYING!!! There are some things that Britain joins into, but to exaggerate that into a complete take over of the British state by the EU is a totally and utter LIE. Or, in your vernacular: BOOL CHID

Posted on 5/31/16 | 11:50 AM CET

Roy Jacobs

@Coloured European Observer, I am afraid you are wrong, by any standard although we do not participate in Schengen (thank God) we do have open borders to EU citizens through the freedom of movement rulings.
We cannot deny entry to convicted murderers or rapists waving a pink passport, even Europeans who have spent time in Syria learning to make bombs cannot be denied entry unless they can be proven to present ‘a clear and present danger’ to the UK, something that a foreign court, not our own, will decide upon.
This is totally unacceptable to the British people, and will be the clear defining issue in the forthcoming referendum.
I’m sorry you didn’t like the British Empire, I didn’t much like the Nazi regime, but I tend not to blame the current generation of fine German folk for the sins of their grandparents, perhaps you could consider the same.

Posted on 5/31/16 | 12:17 PM CET

Marcel

Goldfarb, the European Union organization IS the nightmare.

That super state you claim doesn’t exist, well it is there already in embryonic form. And we want to crush it before it crushes and destroys national democracy once and for all. It really is like the Soviet Union, a mutually appointed elite of politicians (who exempt themselves from paying tax) making the de facto claim that it is best to keep as many decisions as possible as far away from the voters as possible.

National elections are increasingly rendered irrelevant, foreign politicians now make your country’s laws and decisions.

The Euro alone is proof that “more integration” isn’t the solution, but the problem. How the EU teamed up with the IMF crushes the popular decision in Spain, Italy and especially Greece and forces austerity on the poor to pay for bailouts of rich Franco-German bankers. That is exactly what the EU is, not the fantasy that many young university educated wannabe elitists seem to have.

Why do these young wannabe elitists love the EU so much? Well they like the idea of a professional mutually appointed elite running the show, and to keep the riff-raff away from influencing the “needed” decisions.

And many of these young wannabe-elitists are banking on some government or EU job, they’re not the ones who have to compete with eastern or southern Europeans coming in willing to work for less. They have some idealistic (in their eyes) view that the EU can somehow be turned into a force for good, to back the worker and consumer against the big banks and corporations.

Many of these “idealists” are blind to the reality that the EU is precisely there to help banks and corporations, if needed at the expense of the poor and middle class. Don’t believe me? Ask Spaniards, Italians or Greeks who has been force feeding them this “bailouts for the rich, paid for by austerity for the poor” agenda under threats and blackmail: EU/IMF that’s who.

Coming soon to a country near you. And TTIP and similar treaties too, the unelected crowd is always enthusiastically for them, because they know they can be, they aren’t subject to popular recall after all.

Posted on 5/31/16 | 2:14 PM CET

Milton38

As a continental European, with the same deep-seated reservations towards the UK that the LEAVE supporters have of The Continent, I would not shed a tear if and when the UK leaves.
The remnant, with Scotland gone and part of the EU, will be a nation of nostalgia, dreaming of the Empire on which the sun never sets.
Finance will vote with its pocketbook and leave London.
Manufacturing will cease completely.
Like France they will still dream of a Grande Nation with atomic weapons but be of no consequence in a world being ruled by the great Asian countries, China and India.
Then and perhaps only then will the English people realise that those that occupied them since the battle of Hastings should be returned to their point of origin.